Motor Mouth: Aluminum F-150 isn’t the revolution we hoped

Ford's F-150 is one of the few mainstream vehicles to go all-aluminum.

Handout, Ford

Despite all the hype about weight savings and fuel efficiency, the aluminized F-150 was less "revolution" and more "meh"

by
David Booth | February 27, 2015

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What a difference 12 months make. This time last year, the automotive world could talk of nothing other than Ford rendering its F-150 pick-me-up — for nearly 30 years, North America’s most prolifically selling vehicle — in aluminum. Oh, aluminum, in and of itself, was not big news; a few luxury auto marques — notably Jaguar and Audi — had conjured up limited production runs out of lighter-than-steel metal and aluminum has long been used throughout the industry in strategic areas (Henry Ford himself built the Model T’s hood in aluminum). But nobody had attempted aluminizing the automobile on such a grand scale.

To say that the automotive world was abuzz is a gross understatement. Competitors, quite literally, quaked in their Firestone Transforce ATs, bodyshops wondered how they would ever repair this exotic (to them) material, and loyal truck owners wondered if an aluminum F-150 would still be “built tough” enough for their farm/landscaping/construction businesses. Would this be, as so many speculated at the time, the first 30 mile per gallon (7.84 litres per 100 km) pickup? How would Fiat Chrysler and General Motors react to this seemingly existential threat to their most profitable vehicles? Would they rush back to the drawing board to design equally lightweight Silverados and Rams? Was this the truck revolution everyone has been waiting for?

2015 Ford F-150.

Twelve months later, the answer to all those questions, especially this last, is a resounding “meh.” The F-150 is now upon us and while the predictions of fragility have been dispelled — Edmunds.com famously took a sledgehammer to the side of a SuperCrew Lariat to end the disquiet over aluminum’s frailty — none of the prognostications of a paradigm shift in fuel economy has been proven true.

Numbers don’t lie

While Ford initially made headlines bragging that aluminizing their bread and butter saved more than 700 pounds (333 kilograms), according to Jalopnik, it was comparing a 2014 model with a 5.0-litre V8 versus the 2015 model with a 2.7L V6, the company’s excuse that the new turbocharged EcoBoost all but matched the bigger engine’s horsepower.

The sad part about this apples-and-oranges exaggeration is that it was totally unnecessary. Compare the few like models — engine, wheelbase and drivetrain being similar — and you’ll find the average F-150 has dropped a substantial 280 kg. As one might expect, the smaller Regular Cab sees the least improvement, with 260 kilos of weight removed, while the Club and Crew Cabs each tally almost 300 kilos in weight savings.

So, all the effort — the rejigging of the metal stamping process, the countless hours of retraining required by Ford mechanics, etc. — was worth it, right?

Not quite. For one thing, 30 of those shed kilograms were attributable to the 2015 F-150’s new frame, which saw its weight reduced thanks to good old-fashioned — but now higher strength — steel. Meanwhile, Honda’s new Pilot recently — despite being substantially longer and wider — also shed an impressive 135 kilos without resorting to an aluminum unibody (it, too, made widespread use of high-strength steel). And then there’s the small matter of some trim levels of the previous F-150s being heavier than their competitors. Yes, a 2015 F-150 XLT 4×2 is 288 kg lighter than its steel-bodied equivalent, but since the 2014 version was already 80 kg heavier than the comparable Silverado, the 2015’s competitive advantage isn’t quite as large as Ford advertises.

And the EPA chimes in

Ditto for the 2015’s fuel economy increases (and pardon me for using U.S. EPA figures; Natural Resources Canada changed its rating system only this year, thus preventing a direct year-to-year comparison in L/100 km). Though Ford trumpets a 22% fuel economy advantage for this year’s revisions, that’s for the new 2.7L V6 EcoBoost engine, not available in previous models. Comparing the two engines that did make the new model makeover — the 3.5L EcoBoost V6 and Ford’s evergreen 5.0L V8 — the numbers aren’t nearly as dramatic.

2015 Ford F-150

Compared with the 2014 5.0L V8 model, its lighter 2015 equivalent gets just one mile per U.S. gallon better fuel economy on the highway. In the city, its 15 mpg rating is exactly the same as the 2014’s. The 3.5L EcoBoost fares a little better, positing a 17/24/20 city/highway/combined rating compared with last year’s 16/22/18. Nonetheless, a 10% boost to fuel economy isn’t the Earth-shattering revelation we were led to believe, especially when you consider that, besides the switch to aluminum, Ford has trumpeted a 23% aerodynamic-drag improvement. Nor do any of the new F-150s, EcoBoost or not, match the highway rating for Ram’s new EcoDiesel V6.

Meanwhile, in the real world

More problematic is that matching even those optimistic numbers in real-world driving is difficult. As Driving has noted, achieving NRCanada-rated fuel economy in any EcoBoosted Ford can be problematic. And Motor Trend, in testing the new 2.7L EcoBoost against a 5.0L Silverado and the EcoDiesel Ram 1500, found the 2015 F-150 sucked back almost as much fuel as the Chevrolet V8 in its 454-kg payload test and was particularly wasteful in comparison with the turbodiesel Ram (16.8 mpg for the Ford compared with 23 for the Ram). As the magazine so eloquently described the performance of Ford’s family of turbocharged engines, “it’s Eco or Boost, not both.”

So, was it worth it?

Does all this mean that Ford’s experiment has been a waste of time? Hardly. But there will be no mad rush by GM (Silverado/Sierra) and FCA (Ram) to convert their truck fleet to aluminum construction. Perhaps the biggest indicator that Ford’s aluminizing didn’t live up to the hype is that the F-150 didn’t win this year’s Motor Trend Truck of the Year award, the award going to Chevrolet’s (comparatively) pint-sized Colorado. In fact, it didn’t even place second; Ford’s own lowly Transit cargo van edged out the F-150 for runner-up accolades. Despite all the fanfare surrounding the aluminizing of its truck fleet, Ford is likely to score larger fuel economy gains from the comparatively ordinary 10-speed automatic transmission it will introduce next year.

The aluminum F-150 is most assuredly an advancement of the breed, but it’s not quite the revolution Ford was looking for.